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Susan Fletcher

Susan Fletcher Books

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Shadow Spinner

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“And just as this illness changed his life, and hers, and Claudette's and their house on rue de l'Agneau, so it changed that old, cracked globe. It felt different in her hands--smaller. She'd hold it like an egg that could break under her touch. Because now Jeanne's mind could not be on future of foreign countries, it had to be on the cutting up of food, the emptying of chamber pots. Her life moved around her father, and loving him more closely--and how could she resent this?”

LossCaregivingVan Gogh
Author:Susan Fletcher
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“Florrie studies him. From her lower viewpoint, she sees his pores and wrinkles, and a thumbprint on one of his lenses. There is, too, a nick of a razor near his bottom lip- and it reminds her once more that this elderly gent is still a boy, in some ways, as she is still a girl, fashioning a trumpet out of a rolled-up newspaper or chasing Bobs down the garden. She’s still blowing out ten birthday candles. We don’t leave the children we were. We simply grow around them like a tree will, in the end, grow around a bicycle that’s been left against them.”

AgeChildlike
Book:The Night in Question
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“We think, for so long, that old age will never find us. We feel that we, as individuals, might somehow be exempt from it, that we might be given some sort of ticket that allows us to sidestep death, as one might a manhole cover, and carry on, whistling a tune. And then, one day, we find that our knees crack as we descend a staircase or someone offers us a seat on a tube train or we catch sight of ourselves in a shop window and think, Good God, that can't be me- so that we realize that no, we aren't exempt.”

Age
Book:The Night in Question
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“… how on earth had it come to this; how was she looking at care homes for the elderly when she still felt twenty years old inside, still believed she could do headstands, and when there was still so much that she wanted to do with her life – like swim the English Channel or ride across plains with proper cowboys, learn the trumpet or walk the Camino de Santiago with all her belongings on her back. How might she do these things now? Where had the time gone? What was left of her one, brief life?”

Age
Book:The Night in Question
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“Marjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I'm hoping that, by living inside their skins while he hears their stories, he'll understand over time that women are not all this way or that way. I'm hoping he'll look at women as he does at men-that you must judge each of us on her own merits, and not condemn us or exalt us only because we belong to a particular sex.”

MenWayLooksDoeStoriesStrongSexHonestStupidParticularJudgingMen And WomenWeakSkinsCleverTalesMeritShyBetrayStrong WomenOld WomanGood WomanBad WomanWeak WomenClever WomanHonest Woman
Author:Susan Fletcher
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“I've heard fate talked of. It's not a word I use. I think we make our own choices. I think how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. But dreams and stars can guide us, perhaps. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is. Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.”

IfsThinkingHeartPersonsSometimesHardUseDreamLife IsChoicesStrongStarsEasyVoiceOur LivesFateRiskHeardGuidesLive ByTrue YouTrue Ones
Author:Susan Fletcher
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“Stories are thick with meanings. You can fall in love with a story for what you think it says, but you can't know for certain where it will lead your listeners. If you're telling a tale to teach children to be generous, they may fix instead on the part where your hero hides in an olive jar, then spend the whole next day fighting about who gets to try it first. People take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsNeedsTryingFirstsMayChildrenWholeStoriesCertainFallFightingNextTeachHeroFalling In LoveTalesGenerousThickListenersWiserNext DayJarsOlives
Book:Shadow Spinner
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